by Roman aka jar

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Alao Jungle,

In the nighttime when the world is set as rest you will find me in the place i know the best :)

i never had done a tutorial before in which i really explain step by step what am i doing and why am i doing so. After being asked lately how i do so, i have decided to write a tutorial about it. I guess it is always good to have the basics at hand before too much blabla about colours can make your eyes bleed. Here we go...

Please make sure this is just the explained way of how i do this task, not meant to be the truth or the best - just my way.

Materials

- Black or dark Primer

- White Primer

- Miniature

I use Games Workshop's Priming spray here - never tried something else before, no other spray or technique then spraying. So i have no hell of an idea what to talk about more stuff you should need to hear - so please be gentle with me, this is just my way.

Technique description

Shake you spray and when you think you have shaken it enough shake it once more the same time.

I first prime the model after cleaning and preparing it up with chaos black priming spray. But before we go to this step...

Priming Thoughts:

Never smoke, if you smoke while priming:

Don't do it in your room:

Go outside to do it:

Don't press the button for a long time, it makes your miniature drown in colour and gives you less control:

Make it Pft! Pft! Short controlled bursts, you know.

Try to find the right distance, you have to know that too far away makes an not so nice ground on the miniature, to near makes it drown again. Find your middle - i found mine in about 25~30 centimetres away:

If you got a lot of gaming models you can take a box, which you may call Priming Box for the next year and prime some miniatures in them. You really learn to love your Priming box, somehow - it is something special someday you'll see. I would lay the miniatures in there and let them dry and turn them a bit further, but really only if there are a lot of army miniatures to do, if i only got 5 unit members i would bring them on a cork like this.

A Priming box can look like this:

Also think about your distance here:

Priming Process

Black Priming makes your miniature look like this:

(Ancient Hero) King Maulg from Artefactory

At this point i have a problem looking at the miniature - get your eyes above again, really - i am not really able to see something from the miniature, no chance to focus on something, no chance to define anything. I don't like this a lot. Sure there are some cool options while starting from a complete black basic - ahh...

Painting on black Primer

... makes your model look darker in the end. Somehow can't really describe it, there is a bit more Darkness surrounding your end product, can not describe it in a different way i guess - the colours don't pop out that much in my eyes - i mean really popping out. What is really good about this way of Priming only black is that you can leave the dark places (deepest shadows, dark lining) way easier dark as you want. It is not so easy to achieve a bright colour tone here when you don't want to work on it for months.

Painting on white Primer

... makes your colours brighter in the end and it is easier, quicker to achive it, results do arrive faster in your eye, but it is harder to define your shadow areas and you have to do darklining manually, i mean seperating different things from eachother by a dark line ;)

The key could be using a Combination Priming Method with both good things, ignoring the sad things about the single techniques.

So after your miniature is primed black you can now put some thin layer of white on it.

Why?

1. You see more from the miniature

2. You combine both good things from the above description

3. ignoring the sad things about the single techniques.

4. When working with thin glazes your colour has more grip on the white dust ... huh? Dust, what the heck is he talking about...

6. Your colours will have more grip on the combinated priming method, it will be easier to glaze and work with water thinned colours. And it lets you see something of the thing you wantto paint soon... Huh? Why? - here you go, thanks to Raffa for making a graphic to this:

Working with the combination technique

I know two different ways to it. You can spray the white from one single angle to define a light source, the other one goes complete over the miniature - 360° stlye - from a low 45° angle and over to a 45° angle from above. I mostly do it the second way and maybe bring in a light source by making on angle burst stronger then the other - be sure if you do it more often you find your own personal choice on how to do it.

Ok now in pictures... the 360° move looks like this, unmoved - try to start your Pft! Pft! not over the miniature as some blobs can be spit out by your can, you never know.

Now while you are rotating your miniature spray it in the lov 45° angle and the same from the upper 45° angle... ah weirdo:

Ok... Ok...

... sounds totally weird i know - i made a video some time ago to describe it better. The text is in german, sorry i am not aware of the place where my hard disk has lost this videomaterial, but i promise it says somehow the same as the above description.

I guess most important is the moving sequence of me actual doing this in the end of this video:

Your miniature will then look like this - somehow, shit, i did not shake it as much as needed (lazy idiot!), that is why i now have some sparkles everywhere - or the spray was old... ahh - no problem at all, i just paint over it.

Orc Hero from Avatars of War, with a bit too much white in the upper sections:

Asian Magician by Helldorado, here it went good:

Leo bust from Yedharo Models, also fine for me:

But painting still works even you've got some sparkles around:

Hope this helps to show my go at this basic and important step.

Ok... now i guess i have talked my brain off... offline - Keep on happy painting!

Comments:

There are
29
Kommentare
for
Tutorial - Kong's Priming Thoughts

I like spraying a bit on my box to check the consistency before hitting the miniature - this way you can make sure you have shaken enough and avoid the sparkle effect. It will also tell you if you have a bad spraycan, or the nozzle has become clogged, or whatever, without spurting on your miniature and creating unwanted texture or excess thickness of paint.

Especially good when sealing miniatures, as you really don't want to ruin your newly finished paintjob with a bad can of sealer or accidentally picking up the can of primer! (I haven't ever actually done that, but you hear stories...)

@David Thanks... may i quote you again in the Tutorial? I think your thoughts are really helpful as i am a real chaotic you know... my nozzle has become clogged, that has been the reason... ay, ay, ay...

@MichaelHi Michael, great to welcome you as a reader from russia, glad you like what you can find here.

Thanks for the link to your Homepage... i did browse there a lot the last 30 Minutes, just looking pictures because i am not really able to read Кириллица ... i've seen there are a lot more people involved in writing Tutorials there, really cool stuff - Thanks for sharing your painting and Hobby over there to anyone - thumbs up!

About the permission of translation... mmh... please don't get me wrong ... urgs, let me explain, i have been around some places in the last few years bringing in tutorials, dancing on many places and this dance struck me down in the end... i really would like to have everything at one point for me in the future... If you still want to translate them into russian - btw i would love it - i could bring them up here too in russian, in the Tutorial Section with an added link... that would be very cool... really would appreciate your help in this task, if you still want to do so please write me an email at: jarhead(at) massivevoodoo(dot)com ...

Great tutorial! I have been painting for many years (not good, but painting) and I have never thought about combine black and white primer. I can´t wait to try it out. You people at MV do an amazing job, never stop:)

Hey Roman I love your site, such great works. Concerning priming; I am going to be painting up different Daemons from Games Workshop and Forgeworld for an army. I intend to for example base all my Khorne in red with my airbrush. My question is should I use the zenithal priming method if i am going to use an airbrush to basecoat after, or should I just prime black, airbrush on a red base coat amd airbrush a lihter red or two to create the zenithal effect from there?

Thanks for all your great tutorials and good luck with everything else you do!

@DennizMany thanks, the Massive Voodoo Crew will keep it up, but you know sometimes even the jungle sleeps. If you like what we do you can always support us via a donation, that keeps the monkeys alive with bananas and bananas are good for the mood, good mood is for never stop :)

@Wayne ASorry for my late reply. First, thanks for your nice words about my articles, glad i can help. Now to my answer which is not easy to find: You can go both ways as you prefer, haha. I mostly do the 2k priming for my planning phase i see exactly how the light hits the miniature. Sure you can do this afterwards on a red primer, that should not be a problem. I only think that bringing up red to a black basecoat isn't that easy and you got to go several times to make it covering very well. The 2k priming also helps with this problem as your colours will cling better on it instead of only using black primer, its about the white dusty second primer that will provide a better grip of your colour to the primer... gna! This is really hard to tell, both ways you are not doing anything wrong... just find out which way fits to your painting and the goal you want to achieve... hope i could have helped... if not ask on please!

Firstly hy and thx for the article, great help on understanding this technique.I couldn't help notice that you said to spray both from above and below at a 45 degree angle,wouldn't spraying from below at that angle will fill in the cracks and recesses with unwanted white paint?

Do the lower 45° in a more subtle way than the upper one - the upper one is to sketch your light situation, the lower one is just for making the black easier to be painted on. Just a gentle touch of grey there ... gentle :)

I've been painting for over 18 years and have never tried the two-color method! After seeing many images of half-finished models that were doing this, I found this article! Thank you for having such a helpful site! Please keep it up!

I especially appreciate the photograph of the "mistake". That helps me know that, if I have a similar result, not to worry about it -- and prevent me from spraying more white primer, possibly resulting in a dreadful mistake!

Oh, and if the results don't turn out right like the "mistake", just drybrush white areas that should have been sprayed white. At least for this painter who's still exploring, washing in black or brown can be done to further define detail and add shade -- especially to areas which received too much white primer! :D

I have a few questions.In the video you keep aiming the spray on the mini ans spray in short bursts. I understod the short bursts but thought you should spray short bursts that start off the mini and then love over the mini to avoid clumps etc.?

And I see you ude the new gw primer and A brown primer. I have heard that the gw primers are in fact not really primers but instead just undercoat paint. Is that why you use the brown? And what primers do you guys reccomend?

Thanks for the best miniature blog/site there is and somre awesome inspiration!

Walways hit the mini itself without starting off the mini when I spray dark. We do start off the miniature while we prime with white and pull over the mini.

We use the dark brown here because the black was empty in the studio that particular day. We mainly use GW Primer or Undercoats for all of our models, but sometimes also prime with the use of the airbrush.

Hi! just read this amazing article about priming, thanks for it! Have some questions though: first , about the 2 component priming method, it is possible to do it with a brush on primer? i dont have an airbrush or spray cans available in my country, at least not for miniature painting.

Second, how should the primer feel ? I ask because i use p3 paints (especially menoth white base), but sometimes i feel that it takes a hard time sticking on certain primers (vallejo ), also when it sticks its too runny even when not diluted at all, maybe its a problem of primer? Thanks and sorry for the long text, just need some help :) Ty again

I've started trying to get away from monochrome priming and adding colours: ie. sand instead of white, blue grey instead of grey, yellow and orange for highlighting. (Sometimes I still add white or black to finish off) I find it opens up my 'thinking' and creates interesting beginnings. . Vallejo's and Army Painters range of colour primers give more choice here

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